


quiet moments

by gold_rush



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt, Friendship, Gentleness, Hurt Shiro (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Love, M/M, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Sleep, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 07:53:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12185961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gold_rush/pseuds/gold_rush
Summary: Shiro suffers from night terrors, Keith tries to deal with it. He's not alone.





	quiet moments

**Author's Note:**

> I'm away from home and I accidentally left all of my Yuri on Ice fic notes behind; so I've been working on random, self-indulgent standalones instead - this is one of them!

They’ve been in bed for a little over four hours when the softest of sounds cuts through the well-established silence. Keith, whose precarious childhood has made him sensitive to even the slightest bump in the night, finds himself suddenly awake. His heart pounding beneath his ribcage as he presses his back firm against the headboard, the blankets pooled between his legs. He grabs at the material until his knuckles turn white and then, when his head is quiet enough, he hears the subtle whine that woke him.

Reaching out to flick on the light, Keith turns his attention to his restless lover, to the soft mewls that leak out of Shiro’s mouth like water pouring from a fountain. Constant and steady, those little whines start to seem much louder than they are. Until they're almost deafening, and Keith is reaching out, his fingertips lingering just above Shiro’s arm, near the small stump that tapers off just below the elbow. Keith needs to touch him but he doesn't want to touch Shiro _there_ , he knows it hurts sometimes. And, judging by the redness of it, the slight swelling, and the ointments he helped Shiro to apply before they fell asleep together, it's more than obvious that ‘sometimes’ is now.

Instead, Keith slips out of bed with the gentleness and agility of a cat slinking across a tall fence. Moving around the bed as fast as he can without making a sound. Determined not to startle Shiro should he wake up, the last thing Keith wants to do is loom over his lover - like they loomed over him before they took his arm. Before they tortured him. Before they hurt him, and tried to twist him, and made him do terrible things. Things he _never_ wanted to do. Keith has heard about it, he's heard about it all, in the quiet moments of the night, when Shiro’s brain is running too much information and he has to get it out - like he's lancing a festering wound. Desperate for a speck of relief from the things he sees in his dreams, from the things he sees in that in-between time - when sleep still cruelly colours his waking vision.

Down on his knees, close to Shiro, Keith reaches out his hand and whispers, ‘Shiro, it's okay. There's no one here, no one who would hurt you. You're safe. I'm right here.’

Shiro’s brow furrows intensely then, his forehead creasing up in pain, before he whimpers out a breathy, ‘Keith?’

‘Yeah,’ Keith says, his eyes wide as he lays his fingertips on Shiro’s covered thigh, experience has taught him that touching his lover low - his hands, his legs, is by far the safest bet. Once, Keith had touched his jaw and Shiro had started spluttering like Keith had wrapped a rope around his neck and pulled it tight. So, he keeps his hand fixed on his lover's thigh as he repeats, soft and assured, ‘I'm here, sweetheart. You don't have to be afraid.’

' _No_ ,’ Shiro groans out, his voice taut, his body stiff, and Keith wishes he could just shake the man out of his dream but he can't, he knows he can't, because that spirals Shiro into a waking panic, a half-aware chaos that lingers like a black shroud for days. No, what's much better is to wake him up slowly, or not at all, by talking, by convincing Shiro that he's there and that all of _that_ , all of that horror, is over. That he's not going  _anywhere_. But that's hard and it takes time and it hurts because now Shiro is crying and Keith’s own eyes are full to burst. His tears finally escaping as Shiro whispers, voice strained and desperate, ‘Please, please, don't hurt him. Please, I'll be better, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, please, just don't hurt _him_.’

‘Shhh,’ Keith says, as evenly as he can; but, despite his finest efforts, his ongoing tears manage to force an unexpected whimper out past his lips, ‘No one’s going to hurt me. I'm safe, you're safe, you keep me safe, Shiro. You always have. You keep me safe. No one can hurt me. I promise. I _promise_ , okay?’

‘Keith, _please_ , I need you to leave,’ Shiro sobs, his lips pressed tight, into a painful grimace, ‘I need you to go, I can’t let them touch you. You need to stay _whole_. I don't… I don’t want them to ruin you like they-’

‘No, sweetheart, don't say that. You're beautiful, you're whole and you're perfect,’ Keith offers, his hand moving of it's own volition, stopping only centimetres away from Shiro's twisted face. ‘And there's no one else here. Take a look, do you see, it's just us? It's just you and me and we're safe here. We're not in your cell, we’re not there, we're right here, we're on the ship.’

‘No,’ Shiro whines, ‘No. They'll come back, th-they always come back. They never leave me alone.’

Keith smiles, a horrible, wet smile, and he's suddenly overwhelmingly grateful that Shiro can't see it as he grits his teeth and he offers, ‘Not anymore. They can't come back now. Listen closely, you can hear it, the hum of the ship? The sound of Hunk snoring? The others, they're here too and we're all safe and you're dreaming. It's just a dream. It's just a terrible, horrible dream, I promise, Shiro. I _promise_ , no one will hurt you.’

‘No, I-,’ Shiro begins, his face scrunched up in confusion, ‘I can feel it, this bed, how cold it is, and my arms, my body, they've tied me down again and they're going to come back soon a-and they’re going to cut pieces off me and.. you need to go, Keith. _Please_.’

‘Can.. can you feel me,’ Keith says moving his hand to rest it softly against his lover's chest, he can feel how fast Shiro's heart is beating. ‘This bed is our bed, this room is our room, and I'm not going anywhere. You and me, we're going to be together forever.’

Keith watches as Shiro's face shifts into heady confusion, as he tries to move his arm and it suddenly seems that he can. Keith opens his mouth, because his words are vital here, in moments like this, his words bring Shiro back as safely and calmly as possible, but before he gets a chance to say anything there's a gentle tapping on the door.

When Keith doesn't respond, because he doesn't want to call out and startle Shiro, the door inches open and Lance peers inside. His eyes widening as they take in the scene, as they take in the fat tears that roll down Keith's cheeks. Keith doesn't know what to say, so he lets out a quiet whine and Lance slips inside. Closing the door softly before he walks over to Keith and kneels down beside him, rubbing a hand up and down his friend's back before it comes to rest at the base of Keith’s neck.

‘I'm sorry,’ Lance whispers - with so much unbridled tenderness - and Keith offers him a watery smile.

‘Lance is here, see I told you we were safe, you know he'd never risk his neck to save my life,’ Keith offers quietly, leaning back against Lance who snorts behind him.

‘Hey, he's got that right, chico,’ Lance says and Shiro's brow seems to relax, just a little, but it's enough that hope begins to bloom cautiously in Keith’s chest. ‘There’s no way I'd get myself killed for your special idiot.’

‘Yes, you would,’ Shiro almost smiles and Lance snorts, ‘ _Maybe_. But he's okay, and you're okay, and I'm okay. So, you can rest now. We're right here. Keith, he's right here. And we love you so much, Shiro.’

‘I'm sorry,’ Shiro says then, still asleep, his voice tired, and worn out, and so small.

‘It's okay, sweetheart,’ Keith offers honestly and Lance smiles. Shiro shifting a little before slowly, very slowly, his body starts to loosen and he let's out a gentle snore.

‘I think he's out for the count,’ Lance says, smiling over at Keith, but his brilliant smile slips away when his friend lets out a muffled sob, his hand pressed firm against his mouth.

‘Hey, hey. Come on, he's okay,’ Lance offers as he pulls Keith towards him, so the black-haired man is almost sitting in his lap.

‘Lance, I-’ Keith begins apologetically, rubbing at his eyes but Lance cuts him off.

‘No. Lo siento. I should have come sooner, I heard him through the wall but I didn't want to intrude, I wasn't going to, but then I thought of you in here by yourself, and I just… I couldn't let you do this alone, not anymore,’ Lance says, pressing Keith's head against his chest, warm tears seeping into his t-shirt. ‘If this… if this happens again. I want you to know that you can call me, that you can count on me, you're my family. You're my annoying brother and sometimes I feel like I hate you… but more than _anything_ else… I love you.’

That seems to make Keith cry harder, his fingers twisted in Lance’s shirt, the Cuban man rocking him softly, back and forth, until he manages to say, voice thin and uneven, ‘I love you too.’

‘I doubt you'll be going back to sleep tonight, huh?’ Lance asks then, but it's more of a statement than a question, and when Keith shakes his head he hums in understanding. ‘Okay, well, it looks like we're in it for the long haul then.’

‘We?’

‘Of course ‘we’. I'm all attached to you now,’ Lance smiles and Keith doesn't even try to argue, he's just so glad of the company as he begins his familiar vigil, watching over his lover until he wakes. It could be hours. But Lance isn't going anywhere. He has an arsenal of awful jokes to fire in Keith's direction until Shiro wakes up. More than enough for a few hours. Not that he'll get that far because soon, despite how hard he tries, Keith will fall asleep, curled up against his chest, and Lance won't even entertain the idea of waking him up.

This _thing_ , this terrible thing with Shiro's dreams, it's heavy and it's awful and it's been happening a lot lately and Keith is tired. He's _so tired_. But Lance can stay awake, Shiro was right after all, he'd die for them, for both of them, for all of them, and he'd be _happy_ to do it. So this, this watching over his friends for a few hours it's easy, it's an honour. And he wouldn't be anywhere else. There's nowhere he'd rather be. This here, this is his family and it’s _everything_.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly couldn't get the idea of Keith calling Shiro 'sweetheart' out of my head.


End file.
